Mister Tucker Reviews: Holon – The Time is Always Now

The following music review comes courtesy of friend and writer Marc S. Tucker, carried over from his newsletter VERITAS VAMPIRUS and is NOT of my doing despite being featured on my blog - please keep this fact firmly in mind for future reference.

HOLON – The Time is Always Now
2016 / Autumnsongs
Review written by Marc Tucker - 08/25/2016

Jesus, Joseph, Mary, all the djinns, and all the dakinis…this one starts off with everything!!! But wait, let me begin with a history backcheck:

Many among we proghedz have been anxiously concerned about the progressive rock mode as an eternally too-evanescent style now perhaps in its terminal phase. That’s kinda appropriate: the old guard fen are composed mainly of a buncha dinosaur Boomers in our last years, hopefully two more decades of ‘em, heading for the tar pits but wistfully rich in nostalgia, having been witness firsthand to one of the most magnificent bloomings of musical intelligence in history: progrock. Though I personally plan to live to 238, having way too much hell to stir up, far more than a mere 8 or 100 or 150 years could accommodate, what, me and the greybeards wonder, will happen after we’re gone? It’s a quandary.

After all, as I never cease to brag, I’ve seen Hendrix, the Moody Blues, Jethro Tull, Focus, Gentle Giant, King Crimson, the Strawbs, Mountain, Uriah Heep, Iron Butterfly, Blue Oyster Cult (hey, those first 3 LPs are metal prog, goddammit!), Gypsy, Pink Floyd, Alan Holdsworth’s I.O.U., Renaissance, Camel, and more progsembles, semi-progsembles, and fusion groups than I can possibly remember - drugs may be delightful, but, Gawd almighty, do they ever fuck with long-term memory! - and many of them multiple times. After that, I can brag of sitting enthralled as a shitload of big-time progressive others in rock, jazz, and neoclassical went to town: Led Zep, Deep Purple, Philip Glass, Towner & Abercrombie, Oregon, Weather Report [w/Jaco], Al DiMeola, etc., etc. etc., ad infinitum, so many that I literally could fill an entire page with names. So I and compeers know from whence we speak, weeping bitter Cassandran crocodile tears as we mumble and wail.

In the meanwhile, ‘twixt the 70s acid daze and now, a number of dynamite groups have risen and fallen, always too few in number and a little too often a bit too wanting (as in the whole “neoprog” gig, ugh!) and thus a tad unnerving, saved only by the fact that there actually is FAR more great music overall now than ever before, and succeeding generations have been extraordinary in their hybridizations. The Net and all the alt distribution gigs (meaning: anyone and everyone) are now a wonderland of highly intriguing work, more than enough for several lifetimes to absorb in all genres…but… but…a granite-solid Old School prog band is still a very rare thing, especially when it comes to hapless overachievers receiving any shard of decent exposure and the hopeful viability that connotes.

Porcupine Tree’s one, Fish made any number of semi-stabs at post-Marillion re-evocations but settled for melodic hard rock (bitchin’ stuff, too, so hoist a stein in his honor), Saga’s been weaving back and forth (ya gotta love everything they do, but…), and so on. Exasperating! Worrying! Ah, but now comes a major new heavy hitter: Holon, a Norwegian juggernaut that not only revives the 70s but finds new back alleys and carves out fresh porticos in hallowed territories.

“Overture: The Belly of Being” commences in Between’s Carnatic wont, then crafts Gong’s Time is the Key era ostinati evolving Schroeder/Schonwalder cum Paul Brett serialities just as waves of Crimson thunder erupt within what increasingly becomes apparent is an elongated Oldfieldian exploration. A Subtonicky electronic chaos suddenly rises, the wave crests, and everything collapses into an A.J. Charron/Anthony Phillips acoustic interlude with Tull flute floating above.

But don’t relax just yet, ‘cause the song again courses into a melodic pounder, Ronny Pederson’s guitar ripping through the environment as the group chants “Who are we? Where are we?...What are we? Why are we?...Are we playing an untold story?” gently but plaintively, and so existentially jarring that I had to check the liner notes to assure myself the members hadn’t been involved in some dark voodoo shenanigans resurrecting Sartre.

As things continue to wend their way, a definite Flower Kings vibe sets in. Pederson’s leads again slice the clouds, Rhys Marsh’s basswork (democratically shared with Pederson) is a constant throb and his keyboards are atmospheric and generative (lotsa mellotron thru the disc, y’all!) as Geir Johansen’s drums clatter everywhere. Chaos and order ride side by side, competing for the post position and gold ring, the listener frequently white-knuckling while rhapsodic.

Aphrodite’s Child’s vocal work and epic nature (recall the wondrous 666) comes through clearly in “Dancer in the Sky” as backing vocalist Kari Harneshaug shares the foreground with Marsh, who tackles just about all lead vocals during the disc’s entire…70 minutes!, soon replaced by Silje Leirvik in a beautiful set of encantments on “Falling”, Marsh dueting once more. They both drop out, the band ramps up, and we’re back into magisterial refrains, mellotron rising and rising. Harneshaug returns, sounding like Annie Haslam in the throes of deep besetting awarenesses and barrier-crashing, and the tune ends. Whew!

I’ve only covered the first 3-1/2 songs, believe it or not, and, as said, Always Now (a very zen/tao ideation) is well over an hour long, gloriously exhilarating, and so intense so many times that if you’re exhausted by the termination of the concept cycle, then: congratulations! You got it! All the way down to the marrow.

Up until I got this and the cooler-than-cool genius madcap Ear Snacks by Andrew & Polly, I was not going to compose a Best Of 2016 list now that FAME’s gone (those things really are a friggin’ chore, and I hate all the stuff I have to leave out, even with 30 selections), but, beyond those two releases, I’ve been receiving waaaaay too many mind-blowing CDs not to. ‘Sides, my gig at Perfect Sound Forever also favors that kinda thing. So let me reveal well beforehand that this CD will be on it. Sipo knocked my brains out in 2009 (Christ, has it been THAT damn long?) with his Year of the Rose,  for me reminiscent of Aragon’s Don’t Bring the Rain for pure, unbridled, shattering passion. Now Holon has done the same, not in the perennially frenzied degree as Sipo – I don’t know how the guy survived those studio sessions – but in more a crazed academic / philosophical listen-think-decorticate fashion, synapses and neurons flowing out your ears and onto the floor.

I think that alone is enough of a recommendation. I mean, hell, you weren’t doing anything with your grey matter, were you? Of course not! Not with The Quadrennnial Lunatic Derby, America’s mad kingship race, this time a kabuki ‘twixt Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, two sides of the same bent psychotic coin, going on; no, you certainly weren’t. Best, then, that you give yourself over here and now to every scrap of art you can find and hope we survive it all…which, by the way, though not quite stated as I’ve done, is the entire point of Always Now, carrying a very hopeful poetic forecast alongside all the beautifully doomy threnodic realpolitik of much of the instrumental element.

RELATED LINKS:

Holon's Official Website

Mister Tucker Reviews: Ally Venable Band – No Glass Shoes

The following music review comes courtesy of friend and writer Marc S. Tucker, carried over from his newsletter VERITAS VAMPIRUS and is NOT of my doing despite being featured on my blog - please keep this fact firmly in mind for future reference.

ALLY VENABLE BAND – No Glass Shoes
2016 / Connor Ray Music
Review written by Marc Tucker - 08/01/2016

Okay, so Europe’s got Ana Popovic – and Sweet Lord God Jesus Joseph and Mary, can that woman PLAY! – but we here in the good ol’ USA now have a very surprising wrinkle in Ally Venable, all of 17 years old and fronting a hard blues band that thunders and struts right off the starting blocks. Popovic’s a singer/player formidable to the Nth degree (when you can get 3-1/2 million YouTube views for a 3-1/2 minute song, you’re definitely doing something way right), but Venable just might start putting a sweat on her in this, her debut, ‘cause Ally’s a dynamically solid singer and a shockingly discerning lead axeslinger. By way of pipes, she reminds me of a Maggie Bell (Stone the Crows, solo) or Marge Raymond (Flame) who outdid themselves. At just under 18 winters, Ms. Venable sounds like a road vet of decades of dusty, roiling, hard scrabble experience.

Then there are the atmospherics of Bobby Wallace and his gutsy organ backing up the thundering Elijah Owens (drums) and blood-thick Zach Terry (bass). Popovic looks like a model off the runway (or, um, outta Penthouse magazine) where Venable could’ve been in Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but the two step outside their physiognomies to forward the work of both the great black blues singers (Etta, Alberta Hunter, etc.) and the pan-racial players in post-Chicago bluesrock. Ana may be more seasoned, but Ally definitely has an unquenchable fire in her belly flanking the sort of brash devil-may-care heedlessness the young greatly benefit by, a attitude saying “Fuck it, I don’t, care, I’m going for it, and good luck to anyone who gets in my damn way!”. She then reaches for the sky…and gets there.

I mean, how else do you account for such a hard-won sound, not only in her but in the professionality of the ensemble in whole as well? AVB’s timbre is solid 70s, and the band could easily have shared stages with Savoy Brown, Chickenshack, Ten Years After, Smith (Gayle MacCormick’s old gig), appearing at the Fillmores, the old Whiskey A Go Go, and etc. The cover photo to his CD’s a bit Cinderella goofy (my guess? no money for good art direction) and doesn’t convey the powerful work beneath it, so if, on that basis, you might think this band’s just another of the billion extent, think again.

Ms. Venable bears close attention ‘cause, given No Glass Shoes, she’s going to be THE woman to make Joan Jett, Lita Ford, and the rest of the gender get serious, the one players like Leni Stern and Mimi Fox will be regarding admiringly through the years as a contender to the throne. From the opening riff of “Trainwreck” to the take on the classic “Messin’ with the Kid”, one of Rory Gllagher’s all-time fave ditties, to the slo-burn and heat of “Love Me like a Man”, you’ll know you’ve been down to the crossroads once this collection of eight cuts winds down. Hopefully, before you’re able to catch your breath, another album will be following hard on its heels.

RELATED LINKS:

Ally Venable Band's Official Website

Ally Venable Band'S Official YouTube

Mister Tucker Reviews: Jeremiah Johnson Band - Blues Heart Attack

The following music review comes courtesy of friend and writer Marc S. Tucker, carried over from his newsletter VERITAS VAMPIRUS and is NOT of my doing despite being featured on my blog - please keep this fact firmly in mind for future reference.

JEREMIAH JOHNSON BAND – Blues Heart Attack
2016 / Connor Ray Music
Review written by Marc Tucker - 08/01/2016

Whoa! Waitaminnit! “Jeremiah Johnson?!?!”, you ask, and, yep, his parents named him for the Clint Eastwood movie. Then lad took to St. Louis bluesrock at the tender age of 6, digging the hell out of Clapton, Hank Williams Jr., and one of my all-time faves: Ten Years After’s Alvin Lee (birthname, and I didn’t know this ‘til recently: Graham Anthony Jones). Catch “Flat Line”, “Get It in the Middle”, and others for great examples of Big Al’s influence – Stonedhenge, y’all! So it’s hardly surprising when Blues Heart Attack, Johnson’s fourth release, starts off heavy with “Mind Reader” and pretty much stays that way; not metal, mind ya, but weighty and solid, sincere, driving…and when it’s not, it’s jazzy jump blues a la the early-years TYA.

We all know the late, great, red-haired, pant-tassled Lee was a speed demon, at the time of Woodstock the guy to match, arguably the prime precursor to the latterday shred culture, but those of us who listened to the whole catalogue of the whizbang understand he loved, perhaps even more than the burn-em-up frantic-frets gigs, good full-bodied blues boogie too, tracks with well-chosen chords and much simpler but oh-so-satisfying leads, and Johnson dives straight into the same righteous groove all through his CD, a player favoring taste and lyricism over blurs of chops. No Yngwie Malmsteening going on here!

But the backstory doesn’t end there: catch the Dickey Betts flavors in “Skip that Stone”, and there’s a good deal of Johnny Winter in Johnson’s shout-singin’ (“Summertime”, ”Room of Fools”, “Sun Shine Through”), among other discernable ingredients, not to mention a very Michael Stanley-ish blue collar approach from start to finish…though the Elvin Bishopy “Everybody Party” tosses in grins and good times as the frosting on the blues-berry cake. The band’s a trio (Jeff Girardier – bass, b. vox.; Benet Schaeffer – drums) with a couple session cats in various places plus Tom Papa Ray playing harp on “Skip that Stone”, so the rockin’ ‘n bluesin’ is always straight ahead, gritty, and full bodied. Oh, and Johnson may be a Missouri boy head to foot, born and raised, but that dark indigo cover pic of his tattooed scruffy self under a leather cowboy hat is visual warning there’s a quite decent modicum of Texas Tornado in him as well. The Big Mo is only a stone’s throw from Tejas, and I have a sneaking suspicion he was crossing state lines more than a few times.

RELATED LINKS:

Jeremiah Johnson Band - Official Website

Jeremiah Johnson Band's Official YouTube

Mister Tucker Reviews: George Crumb - Voice of the Whale

The following music review comes courtesy of friend and writer Marc S. Tucker, carried over from his newsletter VERITAS VAMPIRUS and is NOT of my doing despite being featured on my blog - please keep this fact firmly in mind for future reference.

GEORGE CRUMB: Voice of the Whale,
A Robert Mugge Film / DVD
2016, MVD Visual
Review written by Marc S. Tucker - 07/29/2016

This is a re-release of film-maker Robert Mugge’s first venture (1976), and what better way could one have chosen to set into motion a debut and career than through the venerable Nonesuch label avant-gardist George Crumb? Voice of the Whale, or Vox Balanae as it’s more formally known, is as important a work as any of Crumb’s earlier masterpieces. I was turned on to the guy through Ancient Voices of Children (1970) and Makrokosmos (1972) after first being brain-whomped by Eric Salzman’s Nude Paper Sermon (1969) (http://www.acousticmusic.com/fame/p08323.htm), which ignited my ever-burning aestheticus acquisitivus lunaticus to search out every Nonesuch LP I could find. From that, tracking down Iannis Xenakis’ work and kindred psycho-active sonics was the logical next step - this was, after all, the 70s - among which Crumb’s LPs still stand out like confident beacons, siren songs in a field of scintillating illuminations…albeit sirens from Mars, Procyon, and dimensions yet undiscovered.

This DVD opens straight into one of a set of ongoing slices in a complete performance of Voice/Vox by the Penn Contemporary Players, commencing with an exotic flute solo bearing florid scents of gagaku, Jon Hassell (long before he was brought through the vale by Eno), Pacific Rim essences, whale song emulations, and, of course, pure imagination. The piano steps in Cage-ily, and, though the piece is of terran pensivities, we’re off for the Magellanic Cluster in spacily eerie atmospherics not dissimilar to the deeps of this planet’s oceans. Don’t ask me why, but the performers are masked; perfectly okay with me: we don’t question Harry Partch as to his eccentricities, and so we leave Crumb to his (‘sides, it makes for a great element of dark cabaret).

Then the composer is serially interviewed by Richard Wernick, and the exercise proves to be one of contrasts: the utter mundanity of the composer’s daily self enveloping a core of revelatory insights reaching well beyond his time (and we still haven’t caught up, y’all). George looks just like another of his surname, the famous cartoonist Robert Crumb, while sounding like a non-nasally, non-whiny, non-pretentious, non-asshole William F. Buckley; in George’s case: quiet, conservative in tone, not at all full of himself, a very pleasant contrast to today’s over-the-top rock-n-rolling interviews wherein everything in sight and earshot is predicated upon branding, merchandising, and upsell rather than art. My, how radically things have changed in just a few decades.

Mugge completely eschews MTV consciousness, not branding a damn thing, thank God, and is, in more than one sense, the Errol Morris of music films, not in Morris’ work as a journalistic filmographer per se but rather as a documentarian in exposures of different but similar nature: first of portraits of those working outside the mainstream and then of ongoing prolific preservations of sonic Americana, the side of the sphere that doesn’t get the sun it should. In the former, among those obscurer creatives you’ll find documentations of Sun Ra, Sonny Rollins, and of course George Crumb before veering into the trad-cats ‘n kitties with Ruben Blades, Elvin Bishop, Robert Johnson, and Rosie Ledet amid a treasure trove of blues, reggae, zydeco, N’awleans, bluegrass, and other modes celebrated in concerts, modern histories, and tributes.

This DVD of Mr. Crumb is among the more crucial of Mugge's works, as visual imprints of a-v musics being performed are rare and invaluable…‘n, man o man, I’d love to see the score sheets the pianist is playing from!: they look bizarre as hell, something Wernick correctly cites as “calligraphy”. More, Voice of the Whale is an illuminating peek into Crumb’s personal life, which was as plain and Levittown as any blue collar workaday despite that famed psychedelic oeuvre: we see him playing Frisbee, in duet with cellist/pianist son David, his wife taking time away from the laundry and lunch preparations to speak about her husband, and so on. Mr. Mugge captured a moment that existed, my friends, in a much different time. Would that more had followed his example, we'd be much richer for the move.

RELATED LINKS:

George Crumb's Official Website

Robert Mugge's Webpage For The DVD

Mister Tucker Reviews: Catherine Stay - A Tribute to Greatness

The following music review comes courtesy of friend and writer Marc S. Tucker, carried over from his newsletter VERITAS VAMPIRUS and is NOT of my doing despite being featured on my blog - please keep this fact firmly in mind for future reference.

CATHERINE STAY - A Tribute to Greatness
2016 / no label cited
Review written by Marc S. Tucker - 07/29/2016

Violinist/pianist Catherine Stay was born with cerebral palsy, and, as if that weren't enough, had the bad luck to run into more than one example of homo sapiens idioticus in the form of teachers giving up on aiding the reach for her dreams. In just two examples: one piano teacher dropped lessons because Cat's feet couldn't reach the pedals, and a violin teacher devoted no more than one day to her education, seeing the budding aspirant as hopeless. Sigh!! What the hell is wrong with people??? Never mind, that's rhetorical. I already know: they're goddamned humans. She, however, was an artist from the git-go and doggedly chased her aesthetic wont over hill and dale: noodling with grandma and grandpa's' portable keyboard, sneaking into the family living room before the school bus arrived so she could plunk around on the piano there, trying the cello out in 6th grade in the school orchestra, taking choir at age 17, and, finally, picking up the violin half a year after getting out of Hell…oops!, I mean: high school.

Stay had to, however, locate a left-handed version of the instrument due to her palsy, a 3/4 size one at that. Preliminary travails accomplished, she finally tracked down a good teacher…just as the family decided to move!!! God, but the deck was stacked against this woman. Catherine was perpetually, however, more than determined and thus arrived at this debut with a collection of recitations of classical compositions breathing vibrant new resonances I find not dissimilar to what Keith Emerson ushered in on keyboards, though in VERY different fashion: Keith liked to reverentially kick the crap out of the, as Brian Eno put it, dead cathedral while Stay injects 10 fully-loaded syringes of zealous vivacity.

Her twist on things resides entirely in uniquely individualistic intonations on violin, the piano far more faithful as a standard recital backdrop. The very first of six cuts, "Violin Concerto in D Minor" (Tchaikovsky), is a long example of skyblown prowess on the strings…with, of course, a satisfying flanking work-out on piano. That raspbox vocabulary, though, is highly voluble, extremely vibrant, fluid as a mountain stream tumbling down from snow-melt, and, to my ears, redolent with improvisation or damn near to it. I'm not an anal retentive classicalist, y'all, far from it, you know that, so if Stay's remaining faithful to the score, then she's bringing a life to it I've rarely heard, transcending score through spirit and a perspicacity progressive as hell in a literacy wrought of considered interpretation and soul-deep inspiration. Listen to the movements in the second half of that opening track, and if you're not moved and stunned, then I'll eat my hat (it's made of cotton candy). Stay isn't playing the violin, she's playing herself, heart and mind emerging through those strings, the mark of the true musician.

Ironically, on the cover photo, Catherine seems to perhaps be a version of The Great Kat, a female Brit thrash metalist who trashed the classics on guitar and was definitely not impressive, just rambunctious on top of being a mouthy pain in the ass. Stay, on the other hand, is a revelation, and anyone treasuring the violin, from aficionados of Menuhin to devotees of Didier Lockwood to fans to Jean Luc Ponty, is going to be in for one hell of a ride, so don't be fooled by the liner shot’s echoes; this is a VERY bright new star in the violin firmament. Catherine Stay is, trust me, destined for great things, and A Tribute to Greatness will find itself in your ears many times as you marvel at her capacities.

MONSTROSITIES Reviews Godzilla vs Gigan (1972)

What's this? Enshohma's using other Kaiju fans works to pump up his own blog's content? Is this a case of spreading the monster love online? Or monster-sized plagiarism from an  untalented weirdo ultra-talented God(zilla) among men and ladies?

YOU DECIDE!

Anyhow...The boys over at the MONSTROSITIES: Tokusatsu Vlog continue their series of classic Toho monster movie reviews with their take on 1972's "Godzilla vs Gigan". And I must agree with them that there is quite a lot to love about this otherwise not-all-that-great entry into the Godzilla film series.

Give it a watch and support these guys when you can.

Direct Linkage: https://youtu.be/5MrlkzZ7558


UPDATE FOR 7/12/2016: MONSTROSITIES posted a deleted scene from main review as its own video review, discussing the bizarrely 'fan-popular' fictional monsters WITHIN the fictional monster movie, Shukra and Momagon.

Poison Gas Monster Dorugo

As mentioned in my longer version of that overlong snails article, there's a lot of overlooked and obscure Kaiju (Giant Monsters) that need more exposure online.

And well beyond unreliable if not flimsy internet archives such as message board forums, Tumblr or Facebook, which might be fun services for those with the shortest of attention spans (common of most Humans these days), but not for the more serious-minded monster fans and 'pop culture scholars' like myself and my many(?) fans.

Today's obscure Kaiju has been featured before on numerous fan sites, but again all those being things like message boards, Tumblr and Facebook posts, and thus I wanted to give this trunk-faced fellow a more solid home so-to-speak.
I know some miserable negativists might say the same about a blog like the one that you're currently reading, but I trust that my non-negativist readers are way smarter than that.

And if you still feel otherwise, well than screw you because its my blog!

Today's monstrous subject, Dorugo.

Most modern-day Americans really have no idea just how BIG the Kaiju Boom of the 1960's and its proceeding successor of the Henshin Boom during the 1970's really was.
Not only were there fantastical and colorful monsters in movies and on television, but also board games, toys, books, newspaper articles, novels, manga, magazines, bromide postcards, trading cards, radio programs, vinyl records, a renewed interest in Yokai mythology, and even imported fantasy shows and films from other countries such as the works of Irwin Allen and Ray Harryhausen.

And our following subject is among the book-based creations of this Monster Boom.

Poison Gas Monster Dorugo originates from the Japanese book “Shin Sekai No Kaiju” (“New World of Monsters”), which was the sequel to the 1967 book "Sekai No Kaiju" ("World of Giant Monsters"). 

And sadly that's all I really know about these books and Dorugo itself (and such a long, slightly vindictive intro for this relatively short article), though the character subtitle of Poison Gas Monster gives a good impression of its deadly powers, despite the goofy elephant-like appearance. It has been heavily suggested that Dorugo might be a space alien in origin, but I can't confirm nor deny that character tidbit at the time of this writing.

Like a lot of the original monsters from these books, more recent vinyl figures of Dorugo were produced decades late, becoming collector items for people ignorant (if not uncaring) of the character's conceptual history.

Photos courtesy of Trampt.com

And something common of printed monster media from this era, here's a cross-section of Dorugo's internal workings.

Thankfully, my friend and fellow Kaiju fanatic Titanollante, one of the founders of Wikizilla, helped translate the anatomy image, as seen in the secondary version beneath the first. This reveals that Dorugo can also shoot fourth a deadly energy beam from its trunk in addition to the alternative of lethal gas, as Dorugo possess two organs (sacks) for either ability.

To all other 'Kaijuhistorians' reading this: these simplistic articles that I'm posting are simply here to make these obscurities more well known online. And with that said, if you find more extensive information on both Dorugo or his debut book "Shin Sekai no Kaiju", by all means PLEASE make your own articles and spread the obscure love across the web!

The foolish mentality of 'Reviewer Dibs' don't mean crap where the unknown and unloved is concerned.

And an additional HUGE THANKS to the tumblr site Kaijusaurus for helping me create this article in the first place.

Thanking a singular tumblr after bad mouthing the very concept itself - hypocrite much, Enshohma?